Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2014
ReviewProcedure-specific pain management and outcome strategies.
Optimal dynamic pain relief is a prerequisite for optimizing post-operative recovery and reducing morbidity and convalescence. Procedure-specific pain management initiative aims to overcome the limitations of conventional guidelines and provide health-care professionals with practical recommendations formulated in a way that facilitates clinical decision making across all the stages of the perioperative period. ⋯ There is emphasis on the use of multimodal analgesia and preventive analgesia aimed at reducing central sensitization. Importantly, the benefits of dynamic pain relief may only be realized if other aspects of perioperative care such as the use of minimally invasive surgery, approaches to reduce stress responses, optimizing fluid therapy and optimizing post-operative nursing care with early mobilization and oral feeding are utilized.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2014
ReviewGenetics and implications in perioperative analgesia.
The wide range of patient responses to surgical pain, opioids, and anesthetic agents has puzzled anesthesiologists for many years. Much of the variation has been attributed to differences in patient size, technique, or prior drug use. However, recent genetic testing has revealed exciting clues into the basis for these variances, allowing us to start to predict which patients may have difficulties and start to select medications more rationally. In this manuscript, we discuss genetics and pain perception, genetic predisposition to pain, drug metabolism interactions, ethnogenetics, opioid metabolism, opioid receptors, genetic-related peri-anesthetic toxicity, as well as a clinical approach and a discussion regarding the future of genetic testing and anesthesia.
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This article reviews the current evidence for multimodal analgesic options for common surgical procedures. As perioperative physicians, we have come a long way from using only opioids for postoperative pain to combinations of acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), selective Cyclo-oxygenase (COX-2) inhibitors, local anesthetics, N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists, and regional anesthetics. As discussed in this article, many of these agents have decreased narcotic requirements, improved patient satisfaction, and decreased postanesthesia care unit (PACU) times, as well as morbidity in the perioperative period.
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Moderate-to-severe postoperative pain is usually controlled using a multimodal approach, including opioids. Intravenously administered patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA) with opioids, popular for over 40 years, enables patients to control their level of analgesia and has advantages over a nurse-administered approach, including more satisfied patients and improved pain relief. ⋯ Complicating IV PCA is the problem of commonly used compounds, morphine and hydromorphone, having significantly reduced brain/effector-site permeability and active metabolites, both of which create the risk of delayed adverse events. Novel patient-controlled modalities that incorporate rapid effector site-permeating opioids and non-invasive routes of administration offer great promise to enhance both patient and caregiver experiences with postoperative analgesia systems.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2014
Comparative StudyPeripheral nerve catheters and local anesthetic infiltration in perioperative analgesia.
Peripheral nerve catheters (PNCs) and local infiltration analgesia (LIA) represent valuable options for controlling perioperative pain. PNCs have been increasingly utilized to provide both surgical anesthesia and prolonged postoperative analgesia for a wide variety of procedures. PNCs can be more technically challenging to place than typical single-injection nerve blocks (SINB), and familiarity with the indications, contraindications, relevant anatomy, and appropriate technical skills is a prerequisite for the placement of any PNC. ⋯ The efficacy of these techniques varies depending on specific procedures and anatomic locations. The recent incorporation of ultra-long-acting liposomal bupivacaine preparations has the potential to dramatically increase the utility of single-injection LIA. LIA represents a promising yet under-investigated method of postoperative pain control.